Slow Hands
by eleventy7
Summary: Blood, shadows and paper hearts. The Shadow hunts students, but Draco Malfoy most of all. Set after DH. May contain traces of HPDM.
1. Blood

They came back.

To finish their education, some said. To see everyone and everything for one last year, others said. To see if everyone was alright, still more claimed. Some came back because they were nosy. Some came back in the hope that they would just pick up their old lives again.

Draco Malfoy came back because he'd been ordered to.

"Luc – Lucius would have wanted it," his mother said shakily. But when she spoke of his education, she did so with a firm voice, for once her eyes direct. "You must continue to learn. You must finish your schooling."

_He's not dead_, Draco wanted to say. _Please don't cry. We can go and visit him…we can be happy…_

She had sold their manor. Too many memories, she said. Draco understood. He couldn't enter the drawing room without gagging.

"Things are different now," his mother had said. Yes, different. Happier now, but it was a bittersweet happiness. The war was over, his family was still alive, but a price had still been paid. His father was in prison and there were too many glances, too many mumblings and mutterings for Draco to ignore. _They were on his side too; they ought to join him in Azkaban too! _

The Littlest Death-Eater. The mocking nickname passed around the streets and was whispered gleefully as he went past. Those horrible beady-eyed, rat-nosed bastards, all looking at him and giggling behind their hands. He could see the challenge in their eyes. _Go on, tell us to shut up, call us Mudbloods…and we'll claw your eyeballs out. We'll fight dirty, cast spells you can't imagine. He started it!, we'll cry. And everyone will say "Oh yes. Once a death-eater, always a death-eater…"_

But he was smarter now. He would not bite.

"Draco, please pay attention."

He snapped around, distracted by the sight of them scuttling away and sneering over their shoulders at him.

"I'm sorry, I - "

"Ignore them. Focus on your education. You're very clever, you know…take after your cousin."

"Which one?"

"All of them," Narcissa said quickly, realising she couldn't recall any of them. Little Marschius, wasn't it, Orion's boy? Or maybe she was thinking of Septimus…

"I only have one and he's so inbred people keep mistaking him for a troll," Draco said in an attempt to make his mother laugh. He got a weak smile and was satisfied.

"Nonsense, you have two. What about that second cousin, twice removed?"

"He was killed. At the Battle," Draco said quickly, as though the faster he said it the less painful it would be. Narcissa didn't reply although her mouth thinned.

"Mother, about my education," he prodded, trying to change the subject. "Must I go?"

"Yes."

"I don't want to leave you…by yourself." He hesitated.

Narcissa looked at him properly and sighed, smiling lightly for what seemed the first time in ages.

"I'll be fine. Go on, finish your education and become the herbologist you've always wanted to be."

"Mother, that was last year," said Draco, his voice filled with that pained tone all teenagers adopt when their parents say things like "Oh, isn't Weird Sisters still your favourite band?" or "Don't be silly, nobody's too old for a pet puffskein."

"Oh, what is it this year then?"

"I don't know." He kicked at the floor morosely and Narcissa, sensing a Mood coming on, decided wisely to move off the topic.

"Well, I'm certain you'll enjoy your final year."

"You sure you'll be alright?"

"Of course, darling."

"Only…you – you won't do anything…_rash_, will you?"

Narcissa caught the meaning instantly.

"Please don't think that, Draco. I still have home, and family and friends. A lot to live for." She smiled and pushed him through the platform wall; he was instantly assaulted by the noise.

"Oi – Finnigan! _Finnigan_!"

"Theo, sweetie, you forgot your owl."

"_You! _You didn't write all summer, you jerk!"

"Coming through!"

"Ooooh, you've really grown!"

"How was Greece, you _lucky_ thing?"

"FINNIGAN!"

"OUCH! That was my foot, you idiot!"

"Watch out!"

"Yes, mother, I've got a clean handkerchief."

"_FINNIGAN!"_

"Don't forget to write, dear!"

"For Merlinsakes _shut up_ Dean, I'm right here!"

Draco felt as though he was watching a play. An exciting, strange play that he didn't have the script for. Maybe his lines had been erased, thick black crosses through his name.

"Hullo, don't tell me I've missed the dramatics!" Blaise arrived, grinning maliciously and pointing at Pansy who had just arrived with her mother. "Oooh, another one of Pansy's fond goodbyes! How she loves her dear mummy," Blaise said gleefully.

But Pansy had learned her lesson. Too long had she endured the mocking of the Slytherins after her long and tear-sodden goodbyes, and she was on her guard now.

"Pansy, darling, please write, how I shall miss you…" her mother began to dab at her eyes, the beginning of a tirade of tears.

"Mother, _don't_," hissed Pansy, standing awkwardly as her mother tried to throw her arms around her.

"My beautiful baby girl -"

"Mother, I'm seventeen!"

"You'll always be my baby girl to me!"

"Mother,_ please_ don't make a show, people are watching," she pleaded, but her mother clung to her weepily and Pansy was forced to suffer.

"Poor old Pansy. What a laugh." Blaise grinned as Pansy spotted him and, blushing furiously, made a beeline for them.

"Don't be cruel, Blaise, what about your mother last year? Going on about _what a big strong boy you've grown into, ooh my little Blaisey-Waisey…."_ Theodore Nott made his voice high-pitched and whiny; Blaise blushed and mumbled an insult as Pansy arrived.

"At least we've got parents, I suppose," Pansy said, with usual insensitivity to Theodore, and Draco thought of his with relief. Yes, you could see them dotted here and there in the crowd…by themselves, pulling their own luggage, smiling in a kind of self-conscious way. The orphans, with no one to hold them and no one to say goodbye.

And Potter was there too, chatting amicably to a fourth-year. Why exactly had he returned to Hogwarts? If that had been Draco, he would've wanted to suffer a nervous breakdown. Surely being killed was a good excuse to miss a school year.

The train let off a warning whistle, and the group was momentarily split up; Theodore returned to his family and swept his younger brother up in a bone-crushing hug. Blaise grudgingly returned to his parents, looking around anxiously in case Theo was watching. He only permitted his mother a quick, one-armed hug just in case.

"Your friends will take care of you, I can see that," Narcissa said. "Take care, darling."

"I will."

They embraced for a moment before Draco ran quickly as the train whistled again and the students squabbled and scrambled.

"Has anyone seen my exploding snap cards?"

"Oi, you – you're standing on my jeans!"

"Yeah, budge up you fat lumps, there's hardly any room!"

"Prefects this way!"

"Would you _quit_ doing that -"

"Is this yours?"

"Not _that_ carriage, _she's_ in there!"

"Is it true about the goat and the blender?"

"Scuse me, coming through…"

"What do you mean, you're not ready for commitment?"

"…and that _damn Danish albino!"_

He loved it, this chaotic jumble when everyone just kind of got mixed up and were too busy to pick fights – Gryffindors and Slytherins milling around each other, not paying attention. As though they weren't in school yet so they could let little things go – treading on each others toes, running luggage over feet, bumping into each other – they were just too busy to care, caught up in their own little world of excited goodbyes and hellos.

"Quiet at last!"

They were settled; the carriage door was shut, the train let off its third and final whistle and then a bell rang to signal its movement – and they were off, chugging away.

"I'm starved. Where's the witch and her trolley?"

"We only just go on! Anyway, you've put on a bit of weight, Blaise," Pansy said unkindly. "You're starting to look a little…podgy…"

"Shut up, Pansy, you're not exactly an oil painting yourself…well, except maybe the oil bit -"

They resumed their bickering and Draco frowned. It was just like first year…all the excited nervousness, everybody trying to return to their old lives. But for him things felt too strange, like ill-fitted clothes.

"I'm bored. Exploding Snap?" Theo produced a deck of cards hopefully.

"Let's go find Potter and rib him about something," Pansy said reliably.

"What about, Pansy?" Draco asked.

"What? Oh – I don't know," Pansy said, slightly disconcerted. "Anything. Dumbledore's pet?"

"He's dead."

"Um – hangs out with a Mudblood?"

"I wouldn't use that term anymore if I were you," Theodore said slowly, ever the diplomat.

"Weasel's poor?"

"He's rich. His brothers have built a small joke shop empire and they're not hesitating to share their fortune."

"Er – he's a stupid scarhead?"

"Original," Blaise said morosely.

"Alright, how about – how much he sucks, in general?"

"He just killed the most powerful wizard in the world," snapped Blaise.

"So? Doesn't change the fact that he still sucks," Pansy said defiantly. "He was never on our side -"

"Times have changed now," Theo said once more, in his slow voice. "There are no more sides."

"But we -"

"- were in over our heads. Our parents should have known better," Theo snapped. "They dragged us into it all. And now they have been defeated, their leader dead and their ranks broken."

There was a tiny silence in which they all tried very hard not to look at Draco; his heart quickened at the thought of anyone bringing it up. _The Littlest Death-Eater._

Pansy opened her mouth again – Theo sent her a look – Draco pretended to settle down for a nap but spent the entire journey staring at his reflection in the window. His face flickered between shadows and sunlight until the sun set low and the evening star appeared.

* * *

"This feels – refreshing." Hermione was smiling, pushing her hair behind her ears; Ron was playing a game of chess against Luna. With a sudden burst of energy, she leaped across the carriage and embraced a surprised Harry tightly. "Harry, doesn't it feel – better?"

"Yes," Harry said quietly. "Yeah, it does." It was true. He'd had enough time over summer to mourn, to feel the losses – though he had told nobody about the Resurrection Stone, he thought about it all the time. Sirius, his parents, rising up and telling him – _we'll always be right here with you_…and that he, too, had known what they had gone through. Death…so quick and easy…_easier than falling asleep_…Their deaths, so painless and without unhappiness. And this year – his final year! – without anything. His scar, gone. His nightmares, vanquished. His enemy dead, his followers broken. No more fear, hurt, worry. Nothing.

People still followed him around, still stared and whispered, but people had always done that. He didn't know why they had to be in so much awe all the time! All he'd done really, when it came down to it, was pretend to be dead. He didn't see where that ranked in the list of top heroics, and (thank Merlin) Hermione and Ron saw this too (or at least, pretended to.) In any case, they certainly didn't faun over him or fill his head with gushing praise.

"This is just like first year!"

"Except we're a bit taller," Ron pointed out.

"I made my move."

"What? When? Where?" Ron stared down at the chessboard whilst Luna smiled serenely at him.

"How's it going, Neville?" Harry moved over as Neville entered the carriage, having chatted to Professor McGonagall about his Head Boy duties.

"Alright. They keep following me," he groaned, but Harry thought he detected a note of delight in his voice. Several beady eyes appeared in the crack between the doorframe and the door. Neville shut it pointedly and they heard soft sighs from the other side.

"Admirers, Nev?"

"You could say that," he admitted. It wasn't hard to see why; Neville had grown a lot since the chubby, clumsy boy that had first stumbled nervously into Hogwarts. His improved physique, teamed with the fact he had helped defeat Voldemort, had won him as many fans as Harry.

"Where's your cactus?"

"Gran said I was developing an unhealthy relationship with it and it was to stay at home."

A short silence fell over the carriage; they were all too scared to ask. Except, of course, Luna.

"Why, what do you do with it?"

"Oh, you know. Chat to it, play music for it, that kind of thing. Helps it grow."

"Oh." Everyone breathed again.

"I told her not to forget to water it once a month, and not to forget to tell it how good it's looking. It has self esteem issues." Neville shuffled a pack of cards, dropping a few. "So it should be alright." He dropped a few more. He may have saved the world with Harry, but he still managed to trip on his robes every now and again, knock over an inkwell when he wasn't concentrating.

Harry found this strangely reassuring.

"So, what are you going to do this year, Harry?"

"Learn," said Harry, and smiled.

* * *

"Welcome back."

Professor McGonagall sat down again; apparently, that was the extent of her welcome speech. After a pause the students began to eat, the noise rising again.

"How's George?" Hermione murmured uncertainly to Ron.

"Alright," he said heavily. "I miss Fred every day but…George will always miss him more, I think. It's like he's missing part of himself, too, part of his mind, like he's forgotten who he is."

"He'll get better," Hermione said. "He has to."

"Yeah…" Ron turned and smiled sadly. "He's asked if I'd fill Fred's shoes. You know. Become a business partner with the shop."

Hermione wasn't sure exactly what reaction would be appropriate and so she settled for saying nothing, but watched Ron carefully. He had been so easy to read before the war; now, things were different. His brother's death had changed him.

"I said yeah," Ron said, allowing himself a happier smile. "It's good, you know…for him to keep busy with things. For both of us. Thinking of the future. I told him I've had to come back here though for my final year, so Lee Jordan's stepped in temporarily. Just til I've finished my education, as Mum puts it."

The war had been particularly hard on Molly too but she was grimly determined to fight her way out of the depression that Fred's death brought.

"Some people lost so much more," she had said and Harry thought of Teddy Lupin crying out for parents that he would never see. He was, at the moment, living with his grandmother, Andromeda. Harry had often visited in the holidays with the whole ex-Order in tow, barging around and cooing over him. Harry thought Andromeda wouldn't like so many people intruding, but she seemed very happy, allowing Teddy to be handed round and making cups of tea. He had realised exactly how much she had lost. A husband, a daughter, a son-in-law. To go from that into a family of two…it was the emptiness, he knew. The places at the table, a vacant armchair, an empty bed. The excited crowds that had swept through twice a week could temporarily fill those gaps at least. Of course, Teddy helped fill more then most. He was a constant source of happiness in her lonely world. And Harry said he'd write once a week, at the very least, from Hogwarts. And a note to Teddy.

"I'll read them to him – he knows you now," Andromeda reassured him, and when she clapped her hands and said "Harry, Harry!" the little infant smiled gooily and gave that happy, ear-piercing scream only small children and banshees can manage.

"Let's go up to the common room before all Neville's fans ambush him." Hermione voice broke through Harry's memories.

"I don't know, he doesn't look that worried to me," Ron commented as Neville blushed and tried to extricate himself from a collection of doe-eyed fifth-years. But nevertheless the trio pushed their chairs back and 'saved' him and he followed them up the stairs uncomplainingly to where soft beds and blissful silence awaited.

* * *

"Double potions on a Monday morning! I should have stayed with George at the shop," moaned Ron.

"Don't be silly. Slughorn's still on, I see."

"Course he is, why would they replace him?"

_So many people come and go…_

"Just hurry up would you, or we'll be late. To our_ first_ potions class!" added Hermione, and clearly this crime rated up there along with 'playing Quidditch instead of studying', 'daydreaming in class' and 'writing in huge loopy letters to fill up the last four inches of a Charms essay' (this hadn't worked; Professor Flitwick had made Ron re-submit it.)

"Alright, so, if I choke on my bacon whilst rushing to make first class on your orders…"

"I won't feel guilty, no. Come on Ron, you can eat much faster than that. I've seen you."

"I'm not a bloody garbage disposal, you know!"

They finally left the Hall, making their way down to the dungeons and into the classroom.

* * *

"Quiet, please," Slughorn said, and Harry could see the war written across his face. He remembered him jumping in and dueling Voldemort and felt quite guilty about his dislike of the man earlier last year.

"Today we are learning how to concoct the Panacis Potion. Page five-hundred and" – he flipped the pages, frowning – "seven."

"Doesn't that take ages?" Theo stared.

"Professor, that's very difficult," Blaise objected.

There was a tiny silence.

"Who are you?"

"What, me?"

Slughorn looked at him closely.

"Aren't you that Calweiss boy? Father owns that French Quidditch chain..."

"Er – Zabini actually..."

Slughorn considered this, then apparently wrote him off as a non-Slug Club member. "You're not taking NEWT level potions are you?"

"Well – actually, I was hoping I could talk to you about it, actually…"

Slughorn just stared, until Blaise muttered away into silence and collected his things, slinking away.

Draco, engrossed in trying to read some interesting graffiti someone had left on his desk, jumped when Slughorn called them to attention.

"…and don't bring any more friends in, Malfoy. Alright. So, the Panacis Potion is extremely difficult but a very helpful potion. However, it does have two downsides to it. Miss Granger?"

"The length of time it takes to brew, and the times at which is must be brewed."

"Very true. It takes precisely six months to brew. It also has several rare ingredients in it and I will require an essay on each one. Only when you hand in the essay and receive a satisfactory remark will you be given the ingredient."

Unnecessarily cruel, Harry thought, flipping open his _Advanced Potion-Making_. It was the last potion, right at the back.

"Is our whole grade marked on this one potion?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"No. You will also be given smaller tasks to complete. The Panacis has to be allowed to sit for several amounts of time; this allows for lessons to be put aside for other potions." He paused, as if withholding a large treat, then grinned round. "I'll be making the potion too, so you can compare your progress to mine."

Everyone looked mildly relieved.

"Right, to work!" Slughorn said, and two hours later the students emerged, blinking slowly in the light.

"We didn't even do any prac, just read all about the potion and its properties!" complained Ron bitterly.

"That's the most important part, Ron," Hermione said earnestly, but Harry wasn't convinced.

"Do I detect a note of unhappiness?" he asked her.

"Well…it's such a fantastic potion, I wouldn't mind getting stuck into it right away," Hermione admitted and Ron raised his hands in victory.

* * *

Behind them, Draco followed, keeping his eyes on the ground. Around him, the voices hissed. _Awww, it's the littlest Death-Eater! How cute! What were his duties? Kissing You-Know-Who's robe hems, didn't you know? I hope he joins his father! Yes, he deserves Azkaban, the little coward…I heard they're thinking of putting him on trial! Oooh, I hope he gets the Dementor's kiss!_

The Minister had actually come round in person. Narcissa had offered him a cup of tea. _No milk please,_ he had said and Draco wanted to laugh and tell him that were he was sitting, the Dark Lord once sat. The Dark Lord had sat there and all sorts of insidious curses and words had snaked from his mouth, like poison…and the Minister sat in that very chair now, smiling and saying "No milk, please." Draco had the feeling he could have gone crazy but Narcissa had sold the manor and its memories before Draco could edge over that line.

And the minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt, had told them that the days of the Fudge ministry were over (and Scrimgeour – but he had happened so quickly, people just tended to push him aside) and that this wasn't the sort of government that went around locking up people and all that now. _We're quite understanding of your position_, he'd said, and then Narcissa had murmured something about Lucius that Draco couldn't quite catch, and then she'd told him to leave the room!

"Yes – it might be best if you go, Draco," the minister had said quietly, and Draco stormed from the room. He listened on the other side for ages but all he heard was indistinct voices, a short silence, and then his mother had ushered the minister out politely and told Draco "Everything is alright now." But it wasn't, with these voices hissing at him, the faces melting into shadows…they sounded like snakes…

"What's going on back there?" Ron turned around interestedly. His eyes skimmed automatically over Draco as though he couldn't see him. "Looks like your fan club, Harry…"

Harry turned too and saw the faces.

"What are you lot looking at? Clear off, the lot of you!" he snapped irritably and the faces stared, then dispersed grudgingly.

"I was only kidding, I don't think they were your fan club," Ron said.

"Yeah, well, I don't like large groups of people skulking around and hissing like that," Harry said.

"I don't like _small_ groups of people skulking around and hissing," Ron said and it broke the tension. They laughed and Draco walked easier.

* * *

But they came again in the night, the dark shadows, their faces morphing, their voices low and accusatory. _Murderer_._ Murderer!_

He woke and splayed his hands flat against his mattress to stop them trembling.


	2. Shadows

Harry woke at five a.m the next morning and realised this would probably be routine. At least he had no searing nightmares and glimpses into Voldemort's mind. But he still remembered the cries and screams of it all, the desperate faces and lifeless bodies, and they were bad enough.

Ron's bed was empty, just like yesterday. Sure enough he was in the common room, reading by the fire (which had by now settled into dull grey-red coals.)

"Alright?"

Ron jumped slightly then turned to him and smiled. "Yeah. I'm alright." He paused. "Couldn't sleep much either?"

"No." Harry sat in the armchair opposite him, reaching out and pulling a table with a few items on it between them. "Chess?"

"You know I'll beat you."

"I'd like to see you try." Harry smiled and Ron grinned, grabbing the chess set as Harry cleared the table of the other things: exploding snap cards, chocolate frogs, a few items from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. Things that belonged to another time, another world.

"How's Ginny?" Harry asked cautiously.

"She isn't feeling too good," Ron said quietly. But Ginny had been that way all summer, learning new spells and charms, throwing herself into the most difficult-looking books with great gusto that scared even Hermione. They all knew why. Fred's death had made her harder, bitter. She was convinced that if only she had known better spells or been quicker and stronger that somehow she could have saved him. She was colder now and distant. She didn't talk much anymore.

Hermione came down about an hour later. "I thought I could hear voices," she said.

"We couldn't have possibly woken you up!" said Ron, looking astonished, although they had just had a rather raucous argument about whose turn it was.

"I've been reading since four. Budge up, Ron." She squeezed next to him.

"Shall we go down to breakfast?" Harry suggested

"Let's wait til six. I want to see you finish this game."

"Ron's beating me," Harry said and Ron smiled happily, a most annoying I-told-you-so look on his face.

"What book are you reading, Hermione?"

"Runes. A really interesting course this year," Hermione said as Ron carefully moved an overlooked yet strategic rook.

"Checkmate."

"What!" Harry stared at the chessboard, trying to figure out where he had gone so terribly wrong.

"Breakfast!" Ron declared, leaving no room for argument, and they went down to the Hall, Harry and Ron still embroiled in an argument about one of Harry's moves.

"Would you two stop bickering for a moment? Ah, peace and quiet!" Hermione smiled as they walked on further, coming to the Great Hall and settling down at their table.

Harry was in a particularly good mood. They were nearly the only ones in the Hall. The air was dark and quiet around them, the ceiling a clear canvas of stars above them.

"Excellent, first dibs! I can get all the best bacon." Ron smiled as Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I can't believe no one's up this early…oh, there's a few Hufflepuffs over there! Didn't see them properly, in the dark." There were three Hufflepuffs, all sleeping on their arms. Presumably they had meant to get in early for study or perhaps Quidditch practice, but had given up halfway through their breakfast.

"Yes, too late for candles, too early for daylight. And there's someone at the Slytherin table," Hermione commented. Harry looked up.

"Nott?"

"Malfoy, I think. Ron, don't put your pumpkin juice on the edge like that."

"What?" Ron moved; his elbow caught on the goblet and sent it tumbling. "Thanks a lot, Hermione!"

"Excuse _me_!"

"Well, if you hadn't said anything -"

Hermione couldn't be too indignant; Harry was laughing and it was oddly contagious. The noise jolted the Hufflepuffs awake. One of them half-heartedly ate a spoonful of porridge, the others adjusting their textbooks to make better pillows. Malfoy was silent. As they ate and chattered however, the Hufflepuffs managed to rise and finish their breakfast. As they left, more students began to tumble in until the Hall was roughly a quarter full. Malfoy had already departed with Ron, Harry and Hermione hot on his heels. He turned left as they went straight ahead, returning to their bright tower before going to class.

* * *

"A clean cauldron is the key to success," Slughorn said briskly, strolling around the room and peering into various cauldrons. "Though a few specks of grime or dirt may not matter in minor potions, the Panacis demands a completely clean cauldron."

"_Scourgify_!" Theo's spell shot into his cauldron.

"Very good, Mr Nott, but you missed the rim," Slughorn pointed out and Theo glowered. "So, once you have ensured you have a clean and happy cauldron" - he paused, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his great stomach bobbing with him – "you may begin with the first ingredient."

* * *

They emerged, already exhausted, from the dungeon.

"I think my arm's going to drop off from all the stirring," Ron moaned, poking it gingerly. "It's completely dead."

"Don't be silly, Ron, you need to practise the Imperturbable Charm, and that requires a lot of wandwork," Hermione said, and Ron groaned. As he cautiously hinted about using his free period to laze around and 'recover' instead (much to Hermione's firm objecting), Harry walked along silently, listening.

"There's that noise again."

Hermione and Ron halted. "What noise?"

"Like – whispering."

They paused for a moment and then it became apparent. Draco Malfoy slunk around the corner, almost glued to a wall as if he wished it would swallow him. Behind him, a group of Ravenclaws and Gryffindors sniggered and whispered amongst them.

_The Littlest Death-Eater –_

Harry caught the others' eyes. Hermione had a tentative look on her face, Ron just looked confused.

"Not again!" Harry said loudly and the whispering paused. He looked amongst the faces for familiar ones but found most of them to be around second or third year. Finally he noted a seventh year. "Oi, you – Zacharias – what's going on?"

"Nothing," retorted Zacharias mutinously but there was a silence. He wriggled about, looked at some of the group for support, then seemed to feel inclined to fill the silence. "Just walking around, discussing stuff." He paused. "You know. Ex Death-eaters, that kind of stuff. Murders, et cetera."

Draco inched longingly towards a small gap of corridor, caught between the two groups.

"Well, as long as you quit doing it around me," Harry snapped.

"It's annoying, having a bunch of ickle second-years constantly muttering behind you," Ron added unexpectedly. "So clear off."

Zacharias twisted his mouth unpleasantly as though had just eaten a particularly sour Bertie Botts bean, then turned on his heel and left. The other students followed and Draco fled the other way, looking furious as he went.

"Wonder what he's so mad about?" Harry muttered, turning a corner.

"He's mad at himself, I 'spect," Ron said. "For being such a coward."

"Ron," Hermione said, wishing everyone at Hogwarts could just call a truce on everything. Why couldn't they all think like her?

"No, it's true! He can't even tell those tiny second years to leave off, he has to wait for somebody else to speak up for him – his worst enemy, in fact. He must really hate himself."

"I suppose," said Hermione, slightly taken aback by Ron's unexpected introspect.

Harry considered Ron's suggestion thoughtfully.

"You know," he said, "I think you have a really valid point there."

* * *

And yes, Ron was right. In an empty classroom, Draco wanted to seethe, to lash out, be angry, but it had all faded away to be replaced by this everlasting sadness, this guilt and misery.

The faceless shadows shifted restlessly in his mind and he stared at a dusty desktop for ten minutes, jolting suddenly as he realised this was McGonagall's old classroom. There was a dark shadow across the wall and as he approached it he realised it was actually a long, dark smear of blood. No doubt a lone struggle had happened in here. Somebody had been injured or died (perhaps a stranger had stumbled across the body later, and carried it down to the Great Hall to join the rest), and as the wizards and witches came later to scrub the Hall clean, to restore the magnificent corridors and rooms, this one had somehow been overlooked.

"_Scourgify_," he said, and wished it was always that easy.

* * *

The door was open.

The right door was always open for Harry.

Inside, Draco Malfoy was righting fallen desks and dusting them down. He found their chairs and placed them neatly behind each desk.

"_Scourgify. Scourgify_." Here and there, tiny blood spatters dissolved across the wall, disappearing. He bent down and picked up a quill that was snapped in two and stared at it, mesmerised. Had a student had their last class here and left in a hurry? Had they been evacuated, and mere hours later, in the dark, had someone come up here and dueled to their death? A room that had spent centuries filled with bright, young faces... yet now it had death written across its walls, the dark shadow of blood marring it.

"_Reparo_," he murmured and the quill mended, the two halves coming together instantly. He set it down carefully upon a desk. He went over to another fallen desk, seeing a splintered chair behind it, hit by a curse or a body. He repaired it with a wave of his wand and as he pulled the desk upright something clinked gently across its surface, then rolled across the floor with the smallest of noises.

Somebody's wand.

Harry watched as Draco picked up the wand, his fingers trembling so badly that he dropped it again twice.

He was brave, or perhaps just rash. In fact it was something Harry would do. He would not pause to pick up an abandoned wand, would not stop to think of the consequences.

"Harry?"

He jumped.

"Aren't you supposed to be meeting Hermione in the library?" Ron looked at him curiously, clutching several textbooks.

"Yes," Harry said quietly and they left.

* * *

In the castle, in the darkness, Draco Malfoy stared at the ceiling.

A few beds away from him, Theodore Nott wondered if his father had ever put his children first in anything he ever did.

A few rooms away, Slughorn dreamt of a pale face with red eyes, laughing maliciously.

A few corridors away, McGonagall felt the toll the battle had taken as she walked painfully, detaining an after-curfew student.

A few light years away, the battle had never happened, and nobody had ever heard of the Shadow.

* * *

Because that's what he told Theo the next morning.

"Are you alright?"

"I can't sleep," Draco said truthfully. "The Shadow follows me." The only word he could think of for it. Shadow.

And Theo knew exactly what Draco was talking about. The word flew around the school. The Shadow. The Shadow, that followed students, that seeped into both work and play. Whilst they were studying, whilst they were sleeping, the Shadow would come and remind them of all they had lost.

But only Draco's followed him around in a real form. The Shadow stalked not only his mind, but his body. It became solid, real, in the forms of those who had lost too much and needed to blame someone. The first years and second years, who had not been there, who had not suffered, but had heard stories. They followed him around, his personal shadows, whispering and pointing.

_Murderer._

_Murderer!_

Blood spattered across his face and he woke, his wand clutched in one hand, the wand of someone long gone in the other.

* * *

He was shaking and pale but he dressed with weak and trembling fingers. When he ate breakfast, his spoon clinked gently against his bowl as his hands shook.

Harry sat on the edge of the Gryffindor table and Draco on the edge of the Slytherin one, a small stretch of cold stone and darkness between them.

* * *

Hermione slept now, deeply and peacefully. She read until her eyes closed,her face smooth and unworried.

Ron took a Dreamless Sleep potion every night.

Harry watched the sunrise by himself, staring up at the ceiling of the Great Hall, admiring all the oranges and pinks and deep purples...

* * *

He had an urge to return to summer again, when Mrs Weasley had taken them all camping ("A Muggle camping trip!" Arthur had exclaimed happily and Mrs Weasley said "yes dear" and had done everything with magic.) They had all forgotten during that little trip. They went to France, across the Channel where the air was fresher and the weather gentler. They had lazed around all day, playing tag on their brooms, flying low around the coast – so low they had felt the sea spray across their faces as they skimmed the water – trying to knock each other off their brooms into the water. And at night they had bonfires and returned to their tents in sandy, sunburned happiness. One dark warm night, they had gone paddling around, and Ron had lost his bathers and had a rather nasty incident with several rocks (which left him unable to wear underwear for a week.)

"What are you smiling about?"

"Night swimming."

Hermione had an instant fit of laughter, her eyes tearing up – which had been her initial reaction. As Ron had shouted out in pain, everyone else had rushed over and ended up falling over the rocks and other people. Hermione, sitting up on the beach, roared with laughter and declared it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. Even Ron managed to grin over it, gingerly holding a towel around himself and having an argument with George and Charlie about whose shirt was whose.

"What are you two laughing about? Oh, not _that_ again," Ron guessed correctly.

"Oh, come on. It was funny."

"Maybe for you," retorted Ron but he was smiling. He had felt quite proud of his scars, in the end.

They laughed. Harry was, for a moment, transported to a happier time.

But in the distance a spoon rattled in a bowl and Harry turned his face towards him.

Draco did not move.

* * *

"Can't sleep again?" Ron was sympathetic as Harry appeared.

"No, actually. I just woke up early. Good sleep."

"Me too. I forgot to take my potion last night. Maybe I don't need it anymore," Ron said doubtfully.

"Yeah. Besides, I like our early breakfasts."

"Yeah, they're good, hey? Some quiet before the day starts." Ron paused. "Malfoy's always there though. Bit of a downside," he joked.

"His hands shake all the time," Harry said quietly. "When I go down there alone, it's all I hear in that empty silence. Just a spoon, clinking on a bowl."

Ron thoughtfully moved his king across a square. "Maybe you should talk to him."

"And this will stop his hands shaking?"

"No, but it will stop you wondering."

"About what?" Harry moved his bishop.

"About why his hands are shaking. Checkmate."

Harry looked up at Ron for a long time.

"You've grown up a lot over summer," he said finally.

"I think everyone has. Except Nott, he's weedy as ever," Ron said, and they laughed.

"Come down to breakfast, then?"

"Yeah, course." They packed up the chess set and departed.

When they arrived at the Hall they sat down and Ron was silent. Harry knew he was listening for it too, that timid shaking. It sounded like a death rattle.

Next morning, Harry went to breakfast alone. Ron refused to come with him.

* * *

Draco knew he trembled all the time. He stared down at his fingers, at his wrist, trying to still them with his mind alone. As though his thoughts would course through his blood, spill into tissue, spread into muscle, soothing them.

He watched his wrist shaking, hearing the spoon clink with each tiny movement.

A hand wandered over and took the spoon away from him.

He jumped.

He stared at Harry. His hand was still holding the spoon in an oddly absent-minded manner.

They stood there, two silhouettes outlined by the sun rising above them, until Harry left with the unspoken answer to the unasked question.

* * *

_Draco Malfoy Worshipped the Dark Lord!_

_Death-Eaters Run In The Malfoy Family!_

_Draco Malfoy is a Murderer!_

The brightly flaming words shone on every wall. Somebody had proven to be wonderfully adept at the Flagrate charm.

* * *

Draco Malfoy had taken a Dreamless potion.

When he finally awoke, alone in his dormitory, and stumbled to breakfast the teachers had managed to remove most of it. But the damage was done and the students were snickering amongst themselves. As he walked into the Great Hall a wave of laughter and jeers greeted him.

"The Littlest Death Eater!"

"Hold on to your Muggle-borns!"

"I heard he tortured someone to death..."

And he saw it in the dungeons when he came down to Potions early to escape the hissing. Foot-high letters slashed into the walls, the flames burning bright and unmissable.

_Draco Malfoy is a Murderer!_

The word was engraved into his body, he felt. Written across his skin, scrawled into his soul. _Murderer!_

"_Scourgify_." The words vanished. Draco turned in a half-daze and watched as Harry lifted his wand and vanished the words again and again. But they were still blazing across the front of his mind. He turned to stumble out the door but Harry stopped him.

"Leaving already, Malfoy? I'm already beating you in the Panacis Potion then," he called out and Draco returned to his seat.

"You will never beat me in Potions," he said calmly, certain of this one fact of life, and Harry smiled.

* * *

Draco didn't take another Dreamless potion after that and consequently he could be seen at six in the morning, sitting at the Ravenclaw table.

It was dark still and nobody was around. He wanted to sit there to see what it was like to be a Ravenclaw. The table felt different and he was right next to the staff tables now, close enough to see the engravings on the seats, the dents in the table. If he glanced out the window he could see the lake stretching away. He was not used to windows. He settled down and had a piece of toast. Ravenclaws would eat toast.

Harry came in and without hesitation sat down at the Hufflepuff table as though he did so every day. Draco looked across at him and caught his eye for a moment. He felt an explanation was needed.

"I've never seen the lake from here," he called across.

"I've never seen Draco Malfoy from here," came the reply.

* * *

The next morning Harry was sitting at the Ravenclaw table. Draco sat at the Hufflepuff table. They tried very hard not to look across at each other. Draco looked at what used to be Snape's chair. Harry daydreamed across at the lake, watching the squid poke curiously at something. Draco wanted this quietness to last forever.

* * *

Draco wanted to prove that he wasn't a coward.

He sat at the Gryffindor table.

Harry sat across from him.

"Do you feel brave?" he asked.

"Yes," said Draco, and his hands were still.

Harry didn't sit at the Slytherin table.

Draco was too scared to ask why, though in his heart he knew. Harry didn't want to sit where murderers sat, eat where they ate. He didn't want to get too close.

* * *

He fucked up the Panacis potion. He felt like crying for the first time and it would be a bloody potion that did it. He wanted to smash his cauldron like a child. The saving grace was that at least Slughorn wasn't around; he'd left to deal with some urgent House matters.

Harry came over and looked at it. Hermione poked it. Ron frowned. Theo puzzled. Even Ernie tried to figure out how to fix it.

Only three months in. Three months left to go. And he'd stuffed everything up, like usual. He knew he would not attend the next lesson.

They went into a huddle. Hermione came back and vanished it. He was ready to kill her.

"Leave them alone. It's your fault," Theodore snapped, troubled over his own potion.

"I know." The anger was gone. The Shadow took away any passion.

* * *

Harry didn't come to breakfast.

Draco didn't see him all day. He wasn't in Charms. His seat in Defence remained vacant.

Draco sat in it to see if he'd feel any different. He looked down and saw the words carved deep into the desk.

_The Littlest Death Eater._

He snapped his eyes back to the teacher in front, who looked familiar. Perhaps he saw him briefly in the Battle.

_Murd-_

He covered the letters with a bit of parchment. The Gryffindor across from him frowned and moved their wand again, trying to carve the letters in.

He jumped. The professor turned to him.

"Is there a probl -"

But Draco was already fleeing.

The Gryffindor smiled.

* * *

Harry was at breakfast the next day. He sat at the Slytherin table and Draco went to sit at the Ravenclaw table when Harry called out his name. Draco returned, sitting this time not across from Harry but next to him.

"I feel nervous, sitting here," Harry said.

Draco had porridge. His hands were shaking again, and Harry gently took the spoon from his hands, moved the bowl away from him. He looked at the letters engraved into Draco's left hand.

_Murderer._

Harry held up his own hand.

_I Must Not Tell Lies._

"Did you lie?" Draco said.

"Did you murder?" Harry asked.

* * *

They took him all aside, his teachers, one by one.

"You must try harder," they said.

"You must practise."

"You must hand homework in on time."

"You must make a better effort."

"You must reference properly."

Slughorn was the last to take him aside.

"How do you expect to pass if you don't even attend the classes?" he asked, frowning and looking at him expectantly.

_I don't_, thought Draco. _I don't expect to pass._

_

* * *

_

_Dear mother._

That line had waited at the top of his parchment for several days now. He hated lying. He dipped his quill and wrote.

* * *

Harry read it later. He'd seen Draco rushing along to the owlery between classes, seen the letter slip from his pocket.

_Dear mother,_

_I am well. Yes, school is going very well. Sorry I haven't replied earlier. Busy studying. _

_Are you alright? Got anything planned for the holidays? Please don't take me skiing again, I got very sunburnt last time (if you'll recall) and still have not forgotten it. If you don't feel like doing anything, that's fine too. It'll be nice just to be home for the hols._

_Yes, my friends are taking care of me. Thankyou for asking. Please make sure the house elves keep out of my room (they move things around too much) and that my wisteria is watered twice weekly._

_Love,_

_Draco._

But he's failing, Harry thought. All his classes. He can't concentrate. His friends don't stop the nasty rumours, the whispering…

"Excuse me," Draco said. "That's mine, and it's private."

Harry glanced up. Draco had returned and though his face was flushed, he held out his hand demandingly. A flicker of courage leapt hopefully.

"What, is it a letter to your dad?" somebody muttered nearby and the laughter rose like flames.

"What, that nutter in Azkaban?" another piped up to more guffaws.

Draco dropped his hand, his eyes cast downwards, trying to push his way out of the crowd.

"Where do you think you're going?" someone pushed him roughly.

"To go hunt the Mudbloods!" somebody called out, their voice relishing the word _Mudblood_, like it was a sticky sweet, sticky like blood, and the jeers rose again. They were getting restless – all it would take now would for someone to reach for their wand –

"Professor McGonagall's coming!" shouted Ron, and the crowd looked around nervously, dispersing, wandering their separate ways, brushing past Draco roughly and sending him stumbling against the stone wall.

* * *

When he reached his common room he waited for his hands to stop trembling, then tried to take out some homework.

The letter fell out. Harry must have shoved it back in his bag somehow.

He re-read it, then scrunched it up and threw it into the fire.


	3. Hearts

Draco Malfoy was melting like ice. Fading like a ghost. They could see him, his head bent low, creeping along the walls, not looking at anyone, hunched over as though trying to disappear into the stone beside him. He was too scared to lift his head, to look into somebody's eyes, in case of what he saw.

He was a coward and he knew it.

He sat at the Gryffindor table again. He was in that kind of mood today, when the day felt bright and new and he thought maybe he could be better.

Harry sat at the Slytherin table where Malfoy used to sit with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him. He didn't know who sat there now, long after Draco had finished breakfast and retreated to examine his scars.

They had carved a reminder in just in case Draco chose to sit there again.

The head of a snake was engraved in the wood, its neck ending in torn flesh and sinew.

"What's this mean?" he asked and Draco slowly got up from the Gryffindor table, walking over as though he expected a trap. When he was level with Harry he leaned over him, his breath ghosting across Harry's cheek in the cold air.

"It means that Death Eaters are not welcome."

"I thought Slytherins would have worshipped them."

"But we failed. I failed. I could not be dark, and I could not be light."

"No," Harry said. "You couldn't be dark." He drew his wand across the graffiti as though rubbing it out and sure enough the words slowly evaporated. "Therefore, you are light."

Draco showed the first emotion for months, jerking away from Harry as if he'd been burnt. "I am not light! I watched people die! I watch them get tortured, and I did nothing! I stood and watched!"

"So did I."

Draco was uncertain now, hesitant.

"You did?"

"Yes."

The Shadow was upon them but at the same time, it wasn't.

* * *

When he was walking out by the lake, Ron nudged him gently.

"What?"

"And Professor Sternis had a look at my essay draft and said it was quite outstanding – what?" Hermione noticed their lack of attention.

It was just those three in the early morning. They had started off as three dark smudges in the snow, wandering round in their frozen blue and white world. Now it was lighter, the snow glowing a soft pinky-orange under the rising sun and they were sharply-defined silhouettes, walking back towards the castle.

"What is it?" Hermione asked more quietly.

"Someone is by the window," Ron said.

"And this is of consequence because…?" Hermione asked but Harry looked. Yes, on the second floor, in a lonely and dusty classroom. His face was a pale blur, his hands against the window like pale butterflies flickering behind dusty glass.

Harry looked down at his own hands and placed them deep into his pockets.

* * *

In Potions, when Draco saw his cauldron full of potion, as though nothing had happened, he turned and stared at Harry.

"I gave you mine," Slughorn said. "It's alright. Just make sure it does not happen again, Mr Malfoy, or I'll have to fail you."

Draco tried to measure out dried Gnargle hearts. His hand shook and the next moment the hearts had scattered all over the floor.

He tried hard, so very hard, not to just give up and sink to the floor with them.

Somebody was gently tugging the measuring spoon from his hand.

"It's alright," Harry said, and then he bent down and started picking up the hearts. Theo leaned down and helped him, their hands brushing against each other, and then Ernie, and Hermione and Ron were there too, sweeping up the tiny hearts with clumsy fingers.

* * *

The Shadow came for him at night. These dark creatures on shadowed wings. They came for the weak, they came for the alone. And was he not both?

He woke with a name dying on his lips.

* * *

I saw you at the window, Harry wanted to say. I saw you by the lake. I saw you in that dusty classroom trying to pick up a wand. I saw you.

And even now he could see him sitting in the front, asking Professor Slughorn about the healing properties of the Murtlap.

Harry was the one to go to Professor Slughorn.

"Draco isn't feeling well," he said, and although Slughorn made a great show of umming and aahing over it, he agreed to help. Harry dropped copious hints about how he considered Slughorn to be one of his favourite professors, et cetera. Slughorn cheered up a lot after that.

And here he was now, peering into the potion and frowning, rubbing his chin.

"...your essay is a day late, Malfoy. Again. Are you _sure_ you're ready for NEWT level potions?"

"Yes, sir," Draco said, and Harry caught the crushing disappointment and doubt in his voice.

* * *

"Talk to him."

"Take him for a walk."

"Have a fight."

"Organise a study session in the library," Hermione said brightly and they all groaned.

Harry did not ever imagine he would find himself in the Gryffindor common room discussing ways to cheer up Draco Malfoy.

"Just don't say the words 'Death Eater', 'Dad', 'ferret', or 'battle' around him," Seamus said, slapping a card down.

"Yes, because other people say it for us."

"Tell them to leave him alone," Dean said, sketching away with a piece of charcoal.

"Get him to do it himself," Ron said and the pile of cards blew up in Harry's face.

_Get him to do it himself._

* * *

Harry sat down opposite Draco, who was presently sitting at the Slytherin table. He had learnt to tell Draco's mood by which table he sat at. If he was feeling brave, he sat at the Gryffindor table. If he was feeling something new or different, he sat at the Hufflepuff table. When he felt lost, he sat at the Ravenclaw table. And when the Shadow came over him he returned to Slytherin.

He reached out and touched Draco's wrist. Draco was holding his spoon; he clenched it suddenly, his hand flexing.

"Do you still have the wand?"

Draco stumbled away.

The Shadow would come for him again.

* * *

When he was walking down the corridor, they attacked him. Not with wands or fists but with words, which were worse.

_The Littlest Death-Eater, the Littlest Death-Eater..._

They chanted it in a light sing-song voice as though it was a bad joke or a silly fairytale. _Once upon a time there was a Draco Malfoy._

And then, he thought, there was nothing. Just blood and shadows.

* * *

He saw a gun once, in the study. The only Muggle artefact his father owned.

"It is a gun," his father said. "It is the Muggle Avada Kedavra. It will kill you." And as if to prove it, he took it off the wall and shot at the head of a nearby sculpture, smashing it into a million pieces. Draco was expecting light, a burst of red, but there had been nothing. Just a loud noise and bits of stone around his feet.

That's what he felt like sometimes. No fireworks or burst of light. No ceremony, no dramatics, no explosions or screams or warnings.

Just him lying on the ground with pieces of his life around him.

* * *

At breakfast, Draco could not see Harry anywhere.

He walked forwards and then he saw him sitting in Snape's old chair. Slughorn's, now.

He sat in Dumbledore's old chair and they looked at each other. He wondered if Harry ever got frightened. If his face ever turned grey with fear, if he ever stumbled, if his hands ever trembled.

Harry didn't seem scared of anything though. He was Harry. Draco could not imagine him crying or sobbing into a little mess or curling up in a ball or holding a wand to his head and screaming that he was going to end it all. He was just Harry. He played Quidditch very well and handed in all his essays on time and had two best friends and was nice to people, even the really rude ones. Draco wanted to be like that. He wanted to smile at people or hand in his essays and have teachers smile at him or just get out of his stupid little mind. Sometimes it felt like he was suffocating sometimes. Like he was walking underwater, going nowhere, frozen in an Impedimenta curse. Moving towards something that he could never reach or at least could not reach in time.

He couldn't look at Harry.

* * *

That night he dreamed. In his father's study, Harry took down the gun and came closer, closer, until it was level with Draco's head. The study disappeared and now they were in a snowy field. Just him, Harry, and a gun between them. Draco stared down the barrel, the blackness...and then a thousand red hearts burst out of it, sailing away like leaves on the eve of winter, the chill breeze catching them and sending them tumbling across the sky, fading into the stars.

Draco woke up, his hand outstretched to catch a heart that did not exist.

* * *

Draco watched them again at five o'clock in the morning, circling the lake. Not talking. No need to talk. Harry skimmed rocks. Hermione drew patterns in the snow with her wand. Ron methodically melted the leaves, one by one, from a tall tree that had not managed to shed its leaves in time for winter. The icicles melted away to reveal the rich gold beneath.

Draco wanted summer again.

He sat in the room, alone in the dust and dark and shadows, when Harry slid into the chair next to him. Two students in an old classroom, sitting at two dusty desks next to each other. Through the dusty window a long sliver of golden light broke the darkness, the sun rising to illuminate a glorious day.

And the two would not move.

* * *

"I've got something for you," Harry said quietly as they sat the next morning opposite each other at the Ravenclaw table. It was a dark morning, the sun still asleep. There was a silver frost and the stars were still out, cold and fresh, and Draco felt more alive than he ever had.

"What is it?" he asked, coming closer to Harry, so close that he could feel the warmth of him.

Harry reached out and placed something on the table.

He recognised it immediately. His wand. Not the one in his hand now, that Ollivander had so grudgingly made him. No. His faithful wand that had been taken from him so many months ago.

"You have to take it," Harry said, and Draco understood.

"_Expelliarmus_."

The wand moved gently, rolling across the table and falling into his outstretched hand.

"I missed it," Draco said.

…_Red hearts, bursting upwards, skimming along the stars, weaving through the Milky Way, dancing across the moon..._

* * *

The first Hogsmeade visit came up.

It was a strange sort of day. It was a day when darkness could be tasted in the air, and the thunderstorm smell rising through the air like a ghost. People were oddly raucous, noisy; their countenances strange blurs as wind-whipped hair shot across their faces like spells, their cloaks rising to greet the shadowed, ominous skies like strange wings. The Three Broomsticks' sign swung and crashed loudly in the gale and a group standing nearby screamed and skittered like shying horses. Ghostly branches scratched at the torn shrouds of clouds that hurried across the dark sky, the sun drowning, so that at three o'clock in the afternoon it felt as though it was on the brink of nightfall. Yes, the whole day had a bruised, brooding feel to it.

Draco's mother had a phrase for it. Fate's Shadow, she called it. When it comes, she said – when you feel it in the air – stay in bed. Huddle down beneath warm covers, don't go out until you feel it pass over you.

Draco always viewed it as superstition and although he felt it now, he pushed it aside. He did not think of himself as superstitious. He deliberately dawdled, looking through shop windows, pausing to stock up on sugar quills at Honeydukes – but in the end, he hurried back to Hogwarts before it was 'too late' – too late for what though, he could not say.

He went straight to the library, with vague study plans in mind (although he was without books, quills and parchment) but bumped straight into Harry. Harry took in his rain-spattered face, his wind-mangled robes.

"I felt the Shadow on me," Draco said.

"Do you want to go down to the Great Hall?" asked Harry.

* * *

Once they were settled – Draco at the Hufflepuff table, Harry at Gryffindor - they sat on the closest benches to each other and Draco told Harry about his mother's Fate's Shadow theory.

"So it's like Seeing?" Harry asked.

"No. It's just like a feeling you get, a lurking in your stomach," Draco said, frustrated at his inability to put it into words but Harry understood, nodding.

"But it feels alright now?"

"Yes." Draco smiled in relief. Harry nodded and smiled, the first time he had done so, directed at Draco. He stood up and left. Draco presumed Hermione had banished him to the library for missed homework.

Draco remained for a few minutes longer, rifling through his parcels from Hogsmeade and readjusting the weight. As he got up to leave, he realised his hands had not trembled once.

He smiled and left.

* * *

He could always find him in the Great Hall. At the Ravenclaw table, Draco guessed, but no. Harry was at the Gryffindor table. He had been there for three days now. Draco wondered if he would stay there now, always. But that had been Before the war, and everything was different now. Time always seemed to be marked by that now. It was either Before or After.

That was the problem. He had always been prepared for a Before, but never stopped to think about the After. In his mind, there was always a Before. In his head, there would be a war, and – and – nothing.

"What are you thinking?" Harry said, flicking a toast crust at him.

Draco was startled into telling him.

Harry paused, absently eating another crust he had saved specifically for flicking purposes.

"My life," he said, "was always in a state of war." He paused, pushing his plate away. "I can't imagine a Before, and an After was something that happened to other people."

Yes, thought Draco. Something that happened to other people.

* * *

"Where do you go?"

Pansy asked the question, genuinely concerned. She never saw him at breakfast anymore. Theo said he was never in the dorm in the mornings.

Pansy couldn't understand. Greg and Theo could. Their parents had been too deeply embroiled. Every act they did affected their children. Every action involved a reaction. It was like a spell rebounding. Pansy, little affected, still so sheltered, seemed to belong to a world that no longer existed, a time that no longer was.

_Where do you go, Draco?_

Away, he thought. I go away, where the Shadow cannot follow.

* * *

They were out by the lake. Harry liked being with them. Hermione and Ron understood. He knew that in her dreams, Hermione screamed as Bellatrix raised her wand once more. And when Ron's eyes glazed over with the Shadow darkening them, Harry knew he was remembering dueling for his life over the body of his lifeless brother. They understood. When he wanted quiet, when he wanted alone, they wanted it too. When he wanted to remember, so did they. They knew him. Evenings were reserved for them alone but tonight Harry was particularly moody, a darkness that made him silent and unresponsive. Hermione and Ron prescribed him a walk, unaccompanied, by the lake, where he could brew and brood through memories alone.

And as he finished, as he reeled in his memories like kites from a stormy sky, he noted the Hufflepuffs skimming rocks across the lake, pausing to pull their cloaks tight and return to the castle. A storm was coming. He decided to return to the castle himself, just as the heavens opened and the rain fell so hard and fast it felt like he was in the middle of a waterfall, walking through a thick sheet of water.

* * *

Draco Malfoy had heard all sorts of stories about rain and how romantic it was. The dramatic rain, the sweet smell of wet earth, the tumultous clouds; but he decided it was the opposite for the single person. He slipped and sloshed through the muddied ground, skidding down a slightly embankment and nearly landing on a surprised Harry.

He clutched onto him tightly as they nearly fell, slipping and putting back a hand to catch himself, feeling the wet earth cling to his palm as his other hand grabbed a handful of Harry's robes again. He managed to haul himself upright with great effort. The two of them ran, stumbling, grimly holding their robes above their heads. The rain pelted their faces, soaking first the front of Draco's open robes until his thighs were chilled to the bone, then stinging his hands til they burned with cold. He could not even feel his face anymore. It was nearly impossible to see with evening setting in over the storm but at last they were up the castle steps and inside. Harry shook his hair out of his eyes and departed immediately, setting off towards the Gryffindor tower without bothering for words of farewell.

Draco took longer to wander down to the Slytherin dungeons and when Theo saw him he smiled.

"What?" said Draco and Pansy, laughing, offered a small mirror.

Of course he was sodden, his hair plastered to his scalp, his robes most unhappily tangled. But his face – oh, his face! – was totally covered with dirt. He looked as though someone had thrown a mud pie at him.

"_Scourgify_," Draco said and wondered if it had made Harry smile later on, when he was alone.

* * *

In Potions he willed his hands to be still.

_Please, please. Be still._

He took a Gnargle heart.

_Be still._

Another.

_Steady._

One more.

_Strong._

Such a painful process. One heart at a time, held between tense fingertips.

_Still._

His heart shattered.

Slughorn looked up.

"Don't hold them too tight, Mr Malfoy, or you'll reduce them to powder."

Draco got another heart, his fingertips coated with the fine dust of another.

_Still. Steady. Strong. _

He would do this and he would make a perfect Panacis. He would pass Potions, if nothing else.

_Still. Steady. Strong._

* * *

Harry wasn't at breakfast. Six a.m and Draco was alone.

Ron came in about half an hour later.

"Harry's sick," he told him. "Just a cold."

He stocked up on toast, yawning hugely, and retreated. It occurred to Draco that Ron had woken early and come down just to tell him that.

He almost smiled but the Shadow stayed. He sat, silent and alone, and not a sound could be heard except for the _clink-clink-clink_ of a spoon against a bowl.

* * *

His trembling got worse when the Gryffindor in Defence re-carved _murderer_ into his hand. Draco felt every letter as though it was being carved into his very bone.

_M U R_

His hands shook.

_D E R_

He would wait.

_E _

Slow, like a perfect summer day.

_R_

Painful, like holding a finger to a candle flame.

And he did not move. He would not flee. Something held him there, frozen and proud. Perhaps a fragment of his past, a song he once knew, a dream he half-remembered.

He did not move.

The Gryffindor met his eyes and turned away; Draco knew it would not happen again. Blood trickled from his hand onto the parchment, hot like the wind from a wildfire, and still he did not move.

* * *

These days he felt something new, trembling in the wind like a gold autumn leaf. Like a red paper heart.

Draco was waiting for something; for what, he did not know. But his hands were still now, his mind quiet, and although the Shadow came often for him he could meet it without turning his head, without casting his eyes away. He felt as though he was remembering a song. It had been waiting, caught in his throat, but now it was almost on his lips, trying to form the words, to finally make a sound and break the silence the Shadow brought.

In his hands the stillness waited; his lips waiting for song, his body keen and strung for any wind to play.

* * *

The whispers followed him but more reluctantly now. Draco kept walking, forcing himself not to slink against the wall like a mouse skulking from a predator, a fox waiting for the hunting rifle.

"_The Littlest Death-Eater..."_

"The war's over," he said and the words broke through them, a ship cutting through waves. "Grow up."

_Don't tremble. Oh, please don't tremble._

_Be still._

And it seemed his heart obeyed too, pausing in time, his lungs refusing breath.

And they were gone, their eyes cast away, their feet shuffling hesitantly.

And he could breathe again, sharp, strange air, as though they had been taking up too much space, making him small and choking. Yes. He could move now.

* * *

He was the first to finish the Panacis Potion as they headed into summer. On the last day of February, he smiled.

"I'm finished," he said, and he was. No rough edges now, nothing left wanting. Perhaps some hairline cracks, some shards that had somehow gone astray. But for the most part, he felt everything again. Yes, he could feel now. He could feel every muscle working beneath his skin, the sinew and bone shifting with each other. He could feel his hands, hold them still. He could hold his wand straight. He could pour ingredients – carefully, tensely – but he could.

Harry was looking into his cauldron.

"Yes," he said, "you're finished."

Outside, red tulips came through the last of the snow; red hearts in an aching winter.

* * *

Spring came moodily, reluctantly, trying to breathe life back into winter's remains, bringing unexpectedly cold mornings, bitter frosts. But there had been a spate of warm weather recently, a begrudged gift which the students enjoyed nevertheless. They roamed the grounds, circling the lake, attempting to study, lazing and stretching like cats in the heavy afternoon sun.

But the cold breeze had come up once more. Draco watched them from the castle. The wind picked up hats and played with them, tossed cloaks like toys, sent ribbons and loose parchment spiraling. A lone quill dipped and skimmed across the lake as if writing in the water.

It was a warning, a promise to the students who remained and sure enough the winds brought the chilly drizzle with them, a sunshower from half-hearted clouds. The remaining students shrieked and tumbled across the grounds, holding textbooks over heads, laughing and exclaiming, streaming across the grounds like ants, disappearing into their solid castle. And the rain deepened and sent splashes across the lake, dapples across the window. Draco liked the rain right then, at that moment. It was deep and slow and relentless, the heartbeat of nature, the lifeblood of the skies.

The song was on his lips at last. He knew it! He knew it now. Slow and perfect like a blooming rose. He could make a sound now. He could break this silence.

Yes. He knew now.

* * *

Harry was standing in the precise middle of all four tables. Trying to choose. Draco came in, his eyes bright, but Harry wasn't looking at him. He was frowning, unable to decide where to sit today. Draco sat at the Hufflepuff table and decided that meant he should be helpful.

"You look in a Ravenclaw mood," he offered, but Harry shook his head and took a Slytherin seat. He rested his chin in his hand and reached for the porridge although he made no move to eat it, just poke it around.

"Is the Shadow on you?" Draco asked.

"No. Not today." Today was good. Today felt fresh. The green leaves on the trees, the clover rising up determinedly like tiny green soldiers. Harry loved the tulips. "Is the Shadow on you?"

"The Shadow is with me," Draco said and Harry understood the difference without asking. The Shadow would always be with them; a quiet companion, a dark memory.

"Will you ever go back to that room?" Harry asked. They knew. The bloodstain on the wall, the splintered desks and chairs that Draco had so painstakingly tried to put back together.

"No," Draco replied. The room held nothing more for him. An empty room, a silent witness. He could do no more.

He took out the wand. If Harry had seen him in the room, he must have seen him pick up the wand. He held it now and his fingers shook only ever so slightly. He stood up and Harry met him in between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables. When he held the wand out his hand shook badly but Harry simply wrapped his hand around the wand too, helping hold it steady.

"_Prior Incantato_," Draco said and it was a whisper, a thin murmur, but it rode across the hall as though an invisible wind had seized it and carried it like a leaf.

Out of the wand burst the last spell its owner had cast. A silver fox that turned and looked at them then evaporated, loose smoke of silver curling away into the enchanted ceiling.

"Expecto Patronum," Harry said softly.

"What?" Draco was confused. Harry turned to look at him.

"_Expecto Patronum_!" he called out, his voice clear across the hall like a bright long ribbon. A flash of blinding white was produced from Harry's wand and a stag gently nudged its way out of the light, then disappeared. "It repels Dementors," Harry explained. "But it will also fight any enemy for a brief time or send messages to other people for you – if you know how."

"Perhaps they cast it against a Dementor?" Draco suggested.

"In the castle? Highly unlikely." Harry shook his head.

"Perhaps they were too weak to fight, and cast the spell to fight for them," Draco suggested.

"If they were too weak to fight, they were too weak to produce this spell. They would have been strong, healthy, their mind clear," Harry said.

Draco thought for a moment. Harry turned to him.

"They used it to send a message, then," Draco said. "They were strong and healthy and clearheaded, but they knew they would not win. They cast it while they were still able to." In his mind, he saw it. The empty room, the dark fight. The fox racing away – the person running back with it, too late – too late! In the room, the fight was over, the person dying or dead, their victor gone – their friend or family member unable to assist except by comforting them in their final seconds or carrying their bloodied body away.

Draco turned away. Another story, another shadow. His strength dissipated like smoke.

"No," Harry said quietly. "That is the Patronus of Seamus Finnigan, and he lives."

* * *

He lives.

_He lives!_

And Draco, he lived! A miracle. A war. Him and Harry at the heart of it. Him in hiding, a coward; Harry brave, walking towards his death unarmed and unafraid.

_He was not afraid to die_, Draco thought. H_e was not afraid to die, and I was afraid to live. And when we meet, _he thought_, when we meet again, I will show him I am not afraid to live anymore._

* * *

They met.

Harry was sitting at the Hufflepuff table.

Draco sat next to him.

"It's raining," Harry commented, and that was all it took for the words to tumble from Draco's mouth.

"You're my rain," he said and it was that song, the right words, like hearts from a gun, the words from his lips. Not blood or shadows. Just a thousand red hearts.

Harry didn't ask for an explanation. He just knew, and that's what Draco loved about him.

He leaned forward and their lips met.


End file.
